Gap in life expectancy between North and South grows wider

Until those in charge accept that you actually need to invest in people, or at least not abandon them to the wolves, stories like this will continue to be common:

A four-year north-south divide in life expectancy at birth for men is revealed in official figures for the UK published on Wednesday.

For men in the south-east of England it is 79.4 years, while in Scotland the figure is 75.4, according to the Office for National Statistics. For women the gap is slightly less: 83.3 in south-east and south-west England against 80.1 in Scotland.

But the differences are even more stark at a local level. In the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, men stand to live 84.4 years and women 89 years. That is more than a decade longer than the Glasgow figure of 71.1 years for men and 77.5 for women.

Health areas with lowest life expectancy are Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Hartlepool, Western Isles, Liverpool and Blackburn with Darwen...

Note that most of the worst places were originally industrialised areas, sacrificed on the altar of free market economics. Curiously enough, people's health in these places plummet. Funny thing, that.